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[–]StillLessons 5 insightful - 3 fun5 insightful - 2 fun6 insightful - 3 fun -  (5 children)

ˆTHIS!

The problem you discuss is the single greatest problem we currently face as a species. Our information sources are now so corrupted by powerful groups stating "what they want the world to be" rather than "what the world is", but claiming that this is what the world is. As such, anyone attached to these sources (and I seriously doubt there are more than a few thousand people on the entire planet truly unaffected by this stream of concentrated garbage) has become literally unable to discern any more what is true beyond the very immediate moment in which they live. I know I can't, and I have been given excellent analytical tools as part of the life I have lived.

Excellent comment. Worth its own thread/article, as a matter of fact.

[–]magnora7 5 insightful - 3 fun5 insightful - 2 fun6 insightful - 3 fun -  (4 children)

The problem you discuss is the single greatest problem we currently face as a species.

I think 90% of people would laugh and say it's not important, and 10 years ago I might've done the same, instead saying war was the problem or something. But this is what causes wars. If you study the rwandan genocide, the people did it because the radio stations encouraged this sort of thinking for over a decade leading up to the genocide! They were calling the 10% of the country "cockroaches" on public radio, over and over. Then when some political leader of the 90% was killed by a person from the 10%, it set off this huge genocide.

Most people do not begin to understand how powerful the media is.

has become literally unable to discern any more what is true beyond the very immediate moment in which they live.

Yes the confusion itself is a weapon. They use the confusion to disable people. You cannot make rational decisions if you do not trust any information, and are thus disabled from acting in meaningful ways.

"The first casualty of war is the truth" is a quote I thought was about misinformation, but I now realize is also about confusion. During a war, everyone is massively confused about everything all the time. This is the primary means by which people are kept in a deep fear/reactionary state of mind that in turn makes them easy to convert to violent soldiers. Whereas a deeply organized society that is highly predictable is very unlikely to go to war or be violent. People think it is war that causes disorder, but I am realizing it is perhaps disorder that creates war. Which means if someone wants war, they can manufacture chaos on the cultural level, which trickles down to the psychological level for the individual. This format of "information attack" or "cultural attack" through the media has become weaponized to a high degree in the last 40 years, and is on global hyper-speed with the perfection of hijacking internet forums becoming commonplace.

It's truly breathtaking in speed now. It feels like we are increasingly getting close to a juncture where people are going to have to wake up to this issue in a deep way. If we don't, we will become increasingly cattle-like, but herded by ideologies and emotions, rather than fences and dogs. It does make me worry about the future of humanity, because this does seem like a new beast compared to the disinformation and propaganda of the past. Although I guess people could probably say the same when the printing press was first developed. There were probably incredible amounts of propaganda books made by the only people who could afford printing presses, the wealthy. I'm sure many educated but poor people saw this wonderful tool, the printing press, being abused to promote false ideologies to stir up war and consolidate wealth. I am sure those regular people thought it was hopeless because of the sheer volume of propaganda being made compared to more genuine content, a situation we see on the internet today. But we overcame, and hundreds of years later for example the 1990s were pretty chill in the US. So it always ebbs and flows, even though at certain moments it looks pretty bad. I think the ebbs and flows are going faster and faster though, and becoming more coordinated globally due to the internet increasing the speed of culture spread.

[–][deleted]  (1 child)

[deleted]

    [–]magnora7 5 insightful - 3 fun5 insightful - 2 fun6 insightful - 3 fun -  (0 children)

    I agree, it's dumb that culture is out of reach because of copyright law. Culture should be made by us, to represent us. Not be some immutable thing protected by law that no one can ever make use of for themselves.

    [–][deleted] 3 insightful - 2 fun3 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 2 fun -  (1 child)

    There is only one solution: To stop believing.

    Removing any and all beliefs means to not feed on "information" from outside in order to act and organize one's life and mind. The starting point should always be what somebody IS. Who are you? The reflex of answering with what you've done in the past, where you were, etc. is founded on belief. If you remove all that, then "Who are you?" becomes easy to answer, not necessarily with words, but certainly with actions.

    Somebody who stopped believing, who has destroyed the mechanics of belief within themselves, has no other compass than their personal identity, or "what you are". By using this actual identity as the compass, information can be classed, not as "believed to be true" and "believed to be false", but as "Meets my identity" or... not. As such, the possibility of "error" vanishes: by not acting and thinking out of the duality of true and false, but instead living by "I am, therefore..." no mistake can ever be made. One acts according to one's nature, and that's that.

    This has the huge advantage that such individuals cannot be manipulated or bamboozled. In some time, only such individuals will thrive and all others will be rendered more or less paralyzed and ineffective because of these problems you describe.

    One of the major advantages of this approach is that it is absolutely effective on an individual level, whereas any other set of measures to "change things" requires a certain degree of popular support, which is made difficult by the very problem you are seeking to fix...

    [–]magnora7 1 insightful - 2 fun1 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

    Interesting points. I agree we have to "return to our senses" in a very literal way. We need to get back to the basics of awareness of our immediate surroundings, and build our identities around that, rather than around ideologies from far-off places that are designed in many cases to manipulate you in to certain behaviors that are beneficial for those at the top. Whereas a self-generated culture will more often work for the self and the soul, rather than working against it.

    It's also probably one of those things where rather than trying to convince everyone by talking the talk, the most powerful conversion tool is to simply walk the walk, and other people can see it as an example. Preaching ideas is outdated in a way, because we are all swimming in ideas constantly. What's truly rare is a person actually doing exactly what they say, and saying what they do.